The chessboard has been set and the pieces are in place.
"Now that everyone is here," Victor said, "please, take a seat."
Harley sat between Ivy and Beast Boy, twirling her fork. "So, Beastie, got any juicy secrets you've been hiding since we last met in that weird VR dungeon room?"
Beast Boy blushed furiously. "Ugh, I told you to stop calling me that, and I-I thought we weren't talking about that!"
"Oh, c'mon! I still have that clip saved! You moaned like a wolf pup," Harley cackled.
Ivy rolled her eyes. "Please, not at the table."
"But this is the perfect table for kinky confessions! I didn't know you played such games Beastie!" Harley said, leaning back with a grin.
"I am still asking, HOW THE HELL DO YOU EVEN KNOW IT WAS ME?!"
"Please, the crime in Gotham might have gone down to be nonexistent, but I know a guy."
Victor cleared his throat.
"Fine, fine. Mister Serious over here." Harley teased
As everyone settled, Batgirl quietly asked Huntress, "It would seem that what we discussed last time might have…" As much as crime rates had dropped in Gotham, they were still left in charge of Gotham affairs under their goddess Raven and monitored Gotham and the world at large. They had been gathering info on the movement of the heroes and some of the villains recently.
Huntress shook her head. "If Kyla-el says so, we'd better listen."
And the rooftop dimmed slightly as Kyla-el stood once more.
"Let me tell you the reason I summoned you all here, what I know… and why we must prepare."Huntress, Batgirl, Catwoman, Donna Troy, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and Beast Boy sat with their eyes on Kyla-el. Even Harley and Beast Boy—normally the first to joke, fidget, or poke—kept quiet.
Only the sound of chewing broke the quiet.
It came from the back corner, wet and single-minded. Someone was absolutely annihilating a tray of food. Harley glanced at Beast Boy. He shrugged, cheeks puffed like a chipmunk's. Batgirl pinched the bridge of her nose.
Kyla-el folded her hands on the table. "Everyone… the news I have to share is sensitive," she said. Her voice was steady but low, like she had pulled the volume knob down three notches. "And I'm afraid that after you hear it, not even half of you will want to stay."
A chop bone cracked in the corner, loud enough to echo.
"I… I'm sorry," Batgirl said at last, twisting in her chair. "I just can't with—whoever is back there. The smacking. The lip noises. Who is she?"
"Me too," Beast Boy added, trying not to look while his nose did its own thing. "It smells like a whole barbecue pit. I am itching to get some…"
Kyla-el lifted a hand, exhaled through her nose, and gave herself one very short eye-rub. "Forgive me," she murmured. A faint amber light ran down her forearm to her palm. The table shifted under everyone's hands, its steel skin rippling like water. Platters rose. Bowls formed out of the surface. Pitchers budded, then filled. In three seconds, the bare table had become a banquet—meats steaming and carved, fruits mounded high, breads stacked, cheeses sweating, a small army of desserts lined up like soldiers. It looked like the aftermath of a Viking raid, all victory and mess and comfort.
"Please," Kyla-el said, waving gently to the spread. "Help yourselves. For all my planning, I forgot to prepare a meal. That… was my mistake."
Catwoman reached for a bottle, stopped, then brought the label very close to her eyes. Even in the little lighting the rooftop offered, she could read the gold numbers. She flushed. "Wait a minute. Some of this wine is—no way. I know this vineyard. And this exact year. How did you—"
"Some I shaped from matter," Kyla-el said, pouring a thin stream of red into a glass, "and some I borrowed from around the world. The owners will not miss a bottle. Or six."
"Ohohohoho… I like this supe!" Harley giggled.
"So the magic box isn't just for zapping doorways." Victor said, already sawing into a steak. "Good to know."
"You kept one." Kyla-el replied, chin tilting toward him. "You should learn everything it can do, Victor. Especially now."
She plucked a sprig of grapes into the air without touching it, floated them toward herself, and bit two that leaked their juices on her rose lips without breaking eye contact, almost seductively. She was too alluring with her even knowing or trying, already taking after her goddess. Jinx elbowed Victor under the table. He blinked, cleared his throat, and went back to his plate as if nothing had happened.
While the others filled plates and poured drinks, Kyla-el waited. Beast Boy's chewing slowed to something polite. Huntress swirled a glass of wine, lifted it to catch the nose, and sipped like she was tasting the weather. Donna and Harley both wrestled honestly with a bone-in cut of something that looked prehistoric. Ivy took fruit, then grew herself a handful more with a lazy twist of her fingers, adjusting sweetness and tartness until her face softened into a private smile.
When the forks quieted, Kyla-el set down her glass.
"As I said before," she began, "this concerns Raven." She paused, let the name hang, and then added, "Raven has been compromised."
Beast Boy stared at his plate, moving a fork through mashed potatoes without actually eating. No one else spoke.
"What do you mean?" Huntress asked. Her eyes were clear, voice steady but her heart stopped.
Batgirl said nothing. Under the table her fist closed so tight it paled.
"What if I told you," Kyla-el said, "that the Raven we all knew… isn't the Raven who has been doing all of this?"
The rooftop went dead still. Even the person in the back—Enchantress, as it turned out, with sauce on her chin—stopped chewing.
"Didn't any of you feel it?" Kyla-el continued. "She was more outgoing. More confident. She took risks she would've mocked before. She moved differently. Talked differently. She changed her shape and her… body. In ways none of us expected."
She let that rest. Eyebrows rose. Eyes shifted.
"The Tower's dealt with Raven's moods before," Victor said finally. "Even her father stepping in sometimes. We're still here, the world is still here. So I wasn't shocked. Concerned, sure. Not shocked."
"Raven growing… a cock…" Beast Boy added, waving a banana like a baton, "is just another Tuesday with her magic. You live with a sorceress, you see some stuff."
Suddenly, Beast Boy whispered, "Hey, Harley… you think if this Raven can grow a dick, she can also grow like… tentacles?"
Harley blinked. "You… think she can become hentai incarnate?"
"Just curious."
"You're not just curious. You're freaky."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
Catwoman laughed. "Get a room, you two."
Batgirl kept her gaze down. "I was surprised," she said quietly. "When she came to Gotham. How she was around me."
"Yeah," Catwoman said, smiling into her glass. "She acted weird. Inside of me."
"ME TOO," Harley blurted, throwing up her hand like a kid. She beamed around at the table, then remembered herself and coughed.
Huntress took a slow breath. "She… didn't act weird inside me," she said, almost like she regretted the sentence the second it came out. She squared her shoulders. "But she did what Batman couldn't. In three nights she broke Gotham's old patterns. Crime families that laughed at the bat packed up and left. That's not nothing."
"I don't understand every piece of this," Ivy said, turning a pear from green to gold with a soft glow, "but the mayor agreed to plant corridors of trees and native plants through half the city because of her involvement in Gotham. That matters to me."
Donna set her glass down. Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through: "I knew she wasn't our Raven when I heard she'd taken the Tower and demanded we bend the knee. I fought her. I lost. She claimed her prize, and I swore to follow the winner, whoever she was. That's my code. But I won't speak for anyone else."
Kyla-el's mouth pressed tight at the corners. She looked around the table, weighing each face.
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